Rejoice!

Me at 40+5 two days before delivery. Beach ball belly

She's here! She's here! Laura Catherine Jane was born April 8th after about 8 hours of oxytocin-augmented labor.  She was 7 pounds, 11 ounces and 20.5 inches long - tiny for a gestational diabetes baby.  All of her siblings and relatives were overjoyed and relieved to finally meet her.

The birth story I'll preface with a comment from my husband: Women like to hear about birth stories because then they have the opportunity to tell their own.  Very true.  This birth story is not very dramatic, other than it is a lesson in saying "fiat." This baby has reminded me time and again that I am not in charge. So after expecting an early and easy delivery, we waited a week postterm to say yes to inducing labor.  I had a lot of qualms about induction; first and foremost because I have always been opposed to birth interventions for normal, healthy pregnancies, so being induced was a wound to my pride. As my mom pointed out, this pregnancy hasn't exactly been incident free: I'm an advanced maternal age, diabetic gravida seven. She supposedly was 6'11 at her 36 week ultrasound, so we thought she might be large, but either that reading was way off or she didn't grow much during her last 5 weeks.  I had a 9lb 11 oz baby the last time I had gestational diabetes.  I've been afraid of going into labor every time I've ventured into Socal traffic.  My oldest kid has a date to prom on Friday night - I need to be there to photograph him! I was already 3-4 cm dilated with a soft cervix.  So okay. Despite misgivings and a lot of fears of ending up with a c-section, I showed up at the hospital Tuesday with my husband and my bag and checked in. My mom and dad came over after taking the kids to school.  My husband and I both commented that the drive to the hospital was a lot different from our previous trips - no endorphins or adrenalin pumping. But I have to admit, I was relieved that an end to pregnancy was in sight.

The next 7 hours were uneventful. The oxytocin drip did very little to change the feel of the contractions I'd been having for a month. They would start to pick up in frequency but not intensity each time the dosage was increased. So my fears of a really painful labor with oxytocin were unfounded.  After 6 hours the doctor came in to check me and I was only a 5, but she could feel the bulging bag of water, so she broke my water. Based on the way some of my labors had gone once my water broke, we all thought everything would move quickly from there. The doctor scrubbed up, donned her hat and covered her shoes. Then everyone sat around looking at me: "Feel anything yet?" "Anything changing?"  I was starving. I had thought I might have delivered by lunch if my body was really ready to give birth. The kids were hoping to get checked out of school to come over to meet the baby.  No luck. For two hours we waited, then the dr. checked me again. Still only a 5. Disappointment crept in. I went to the bathroom to hide my fear that a c-section was looming. This could go on all night. On the one hand, I wasn't uncomfortable. On the other, this baby had to come out eventually somehow.

The doctor was allowed to eat, so she left to go home to have dinner with her husband since nothing seemed to be happening. Half an hour later, the nurses changed shift, so they all got to go eat dinner. Before they left, the nurses told me to be sure to say anything if I felt any changes, so they could call the doctor. Contractions were getting longer, but still not more painful. The new nurse came in to check me to get a feel for what a 5 felt like. She measured me at a seven and decided to call the doctor, but relief was sooner in sight! In the next half hour the baby descended, crowned and was delivered!

Actually, it was a lot more chaotic than that: I suddenly began to get really uncomfortable and a little scared, because I was still thinking I had a long way to go. Then the baby's heart rate dropped. The nurses called the NICU. I was laying on my side and moaning when they asked me to try to turn over. This is the really painful part of labor that you forget.  This is also the moment when I was praising God that my gifted mother was with me.  Throughout the long day, she had been a encouraging presence, but not intrusive. Mostly she kept the mood light during labor with conversation and reassurance.  But when I began to transition, her nursing intuitions kicked into action, and she jumped into assistance, directing the nurses in delivering the baby while I was on my side. She kept me, now in that odd place of disconnection, from losing control by coaching me to blow out, blow out, blow out (which my husband admitted later that he thought she was using some medical jargon to say I was having a blow out because everything was going so fast). And suddenly we were in that incredible moment of searing pain and overwhelming relief when the baby's head emerged, followed quickly by the slippery delivery of the rest of her body.  She was indeed a girl, and despite her rapid birth trauma, she was wiggling vivaciously around on my chest while I, still in a daze, gazed at this little person who had been so close and yet such a stranger.

The doctor arrived to deliver the placenta, and I compliment her for being so gentle and patient.  In retrospect, and compared to so many others' birth stories, this baby arrived in a very untraumatic way.  Her blood sugars were fine, she is nursing like a star, and her eyes already show recognition of her dad and siblings. Their voices are familiar.

Perhaps the most difficult part of having the baby was deciding a name. Finally, I talked my husband into three names. Laura is a form of my mother's name and there is a Saint Laura, a Spanish nun thrown in a vat a molten tar for standing up to the Moors, but also Saint Lawrence, another great martyr. Etymologically, it's a derivative of the Latin for the laurel flower, the wreath for victorious athletes and poets. And of course, there is Petrarch's Laura - not quite as inspirational as Dante's Beatrice, but still a great muse. I like the English pronunciation "Law-ra" instead of "Loh-ra," which is why my husband wasn't in favor - he doesn't like confusing names.

Catherine is a name I have always liked, dignified and graceful, and meaning "pure." There are many great St. Catherines, but I think my favorite is Catherine of Siena, the 23rd baby of her parents, a philosopher saint, whose feast day is at the end of the month. When I was younger, I had a doll named Catherine I called Katie Jane. She now is in my daughters' closet. My husband's dear grandmother who died last summer was Mildred Catherine, and while I thought Millie was cute, I couldn't harness a baby with Mildred, and my mother-in-law backed me up in confirming that her mother never really liked her name. I also have a cousin who is a nun who is a Catherine, and a wonderful aunt, my godmother, has Catherine as a part of her name.

Jane is my middle name, and my mother's and my great grandmother's, and I always thought I'd use it eventually as a middle name, but my niece who is born the same day as my first daughter, Anne Elizabeth, named for my mother-in-law and sister, great saints, and other beloved Annes, "Grace and favor of God," has Jane as a middle name. And then when our second daughter was born, I had to use a name I'd been loving for years, Claire Sophia, "Light of Wisdom," who shares a name with my husband's grandmother and another great saint.  So Jane, "Gift from God," has been waiting for years to come into our family.

There were other names I was sorry not to use. My paternal grandmother's birthday is the day after this baby's birthday and her name was Margaret Jean. I love the name Margaret, "Pearl," but it wasn't on the short list. Now I'm not sure why. (Am I thinking of changing Baby's name again?) But Jane is a form of Jean and my oldest son, Joseph Walden, has her maiden name as his middle name (as does his grandpa). I was sympathetic to my son's predilection for Beatrice, and I really love the name Sarah also.

So Laura Catherine Jane it is. LauraCatherine Jane? Laura Kate? Katie Jane? Catherine? Elsie Jane for LC? (the boys' pick). Princess Buttercup? (We rewatched Princess Bride while waiting for her.) Her nickname is yet to be determined.

The siblings are all in love with her, whatever her name is. First thing in the morning and as soon as they get home from school they want to hold her. They can't wait for me to come to school to show her off to their friends. She is smothered in attention. The girls can't wait to change her. But this too shall pass, I'm sure.

And now more pictures of someone else's baby than you ever cared to see:

Long, skinny feet

The weight picture

Happy Father

Getting cleaned up to meet her siblings.

My new dollbaby and me, finally getting something to eat. I was ravenous, but all I got was Jello, till the kids brought me leftover pizza. This hospital had a great staff, but poor food service.

Brother #3 got to hold her first. Since the middle kids rarely get to go first,
we worked inside out in the "who gets to hold the baby" order.

This guy was happy to go last so he could have the longest turn.

The grandparents: Nurse Nana extraordinaire.

Now we are 9 (picture Dad behind the lens).

Day 1: her first bunny

And she's home!

To Laura:
Oh blessed be the day, the month, the year,
the season and the time, the hour, the instant,
the gracious countryside, the place where I was
struck by those two lovely eyes that bound me;

and blessed be the first sweet agony
I felt when I found myself bound to Love,
the bow and all the arrows that have pierced me,
the wounds that reach the bottom of my heart.

Bound to Love, Petrarch

Gratuitous cuteness

This weekend we celebrated the 17th birthday of my oldest. His birthday is always during Lent, but this year it fell on a Sunday, so we gladly used the Sunday as a Little Easter line to celebrate his birth.  He was born five weeks early three days after I had returned from a visit to my sister who was studying at Oxford.  I may have told his birth story before, but it's a good one. It begins with the week before he was born:

Sometime early in 1997, My mom found plane tickets to England from Boston for $300, and so I rushed to get a new passport to go with her since we were living in Newport, Rhode Island, at the time. We had been married about 7 months at the time, but I was a little lonely for my mom and sister, who lived so far away.  I checked with my doctor first, who gave me permission since I would be only 34 weeks at the time. We had a wonderful week meandering the English countryside, visiting Olde Rectories, eating scones and clotted cream, and spending a day in London.

The day after I returned to the states, my husband's best friend from college came to visit for the weekend, we drove back up to Boston with him to see my husband's brother and the city. I remember having excruciating pain in my back during the drive up, but thought I just had to go to the bathroom. We spent the day touring historical sites in Boston and then I went to bed early while the boys went out. (We were 23 at the time.) My husband came home thinking I was mad at him because I was grumpy when he woke me up. The next day we showed up at Mass where we were going to meet other friends, and no sooner had we sat down, than I knew something was wrong. I either wet my pants or my water broke.  I rushed into the bathroom scared to death because I was only 35 weeks along and hid in a stall trying to think straight until my husband sent a random stranger in to find me. She calmed me down and told me we had plenty of time to get to the hospital. All I knew about water breaking was the "Get to the doctor right away!"  We called our parents from a pay phone, and then my husband drove like a maniac, speeding the 90 miles between Boston and Newport, praying he would get pulled over by a cop so he could say, "My wife is having a baby!" No luck. He did stop at Burger King, and as soon as we got checked in he started to eat the cheeses that were stocking the little fridge in room. The Newport hospital had a birthing center with all sorts of comforts for the father, like a mini-fridge, a pull-out couch, and a jacuzzi, which he also took advantage of. I have memories of him eating through labor, but he'll tell me that's revisionist history. His brother and friend also showed up with donuts a couple hours later.

Meanwhile, my parents literally raced to a plane - my mom even forgot her ID - and arrived 6 or 7 hours later, but by that time our little boy had been born. He presented posterior - hence the back pain - with his little fist clenched up by his face, so needless to say, I had to have some stitches. In some of the photos of his first hours, you can see blood splashed up by my pillow, which is part of the reason I never have felt strongly inclined to have a home birth. Although early, he was still six pounds, 11 ounces, but he hardly had any eyebrows, and he turned quite orange in the next couple of days.  My husband had to buy a carseat before we could leave the hospital, and he and his brother had to put together the crib we rarely used. Our bedroom in the half of a house we rented in Newport was so small that you had to kneel on the foot of our double bed to put him in his crib, and to open a dresser drawer, you had to sit on the side of the bed. We should have just used a drawer for a crib. Ah, the good old days!

As an inexperienced mother without close relatives living nearby, I didn't recognize the early signs of labor, nor did I realize how fussy this little guy was as an infant until I had other babies who didn't cry all the time that they weren't sucking on something. But I was happy to nurse him all the time, or pop my little finger in his mouth, until he finally grew out of it. And he never has been a fussy kid since. For his seventeenth birthday, he didn't even have any requests for his birthday except a cake with a lot of frosting and knepp, the dumplings sauteed in butter that my mother-in-law makes. So we had lots of both for dinner last night, along with steak and lobster that my brother-in-law, the same one who used to live in Boston, caught two nights before.  It reminded us of the lobster dinner the hospital fed us after Joseph's birth, but much tastier.  Forget diabetes and Lenten fasting for a meal to celebrate life!

Photos of then and now:

March 1997

March 2014

and one more of his baby sister at 36 weeks. You can already see that she has the familial dimple chin. 

To Jump on the bandwagon or not to jump

I am now the proud aunt of two new nieces. I also have at least one nephew due to arrive in the late spring, and another niece or nephew due in the fall. More than one cousin on both my side of the family and my husband’s side has had or will have a baby soon. And my daughter’s soccer coach’s wife has the cutest tiny baby boy she brings to practice sometimes. He was born a little early and so is still at the cuddly, hunchy, sleepy stage.


So I feel a little left out of the fertility fest. This has been a recent topic of conversation at bedtime between my husband and me (and on the internet – my sister is not making the issue any less complicated). Our kids have asked more than once when we’re going to have another one. The youngest wants a baby sister. The olders hijack other people’s babies. I want a baby to hold too! Should we jump on the bandwagon of babyhaving, or continue on our status quo mode of practicing NFP with the expectation that one of these days we’re going to be surprised with a pregnancy?


Actually, I think the surprise is that I haven’t been pregnant for almost five years. Have we finally managed to figure NFP out? Maybe I’m getting older, although I’m not yet forty. Maybe my facetious remarks to friends that we’d have as many kids as we could until I turned 35 were heard by God and taken seriously. Maybe we fall asleep too quickly at night.


Despite all the peer pressure to get pregnant from my younger relatives, most of our friends, except maybe the Mormons, would think I was certifiably insane if I were to get pregnant again. We run with a different group of people here than we did when we were in Illinois and Virginia, where we hung out with home schoolers and young people who were into having babies. In fact, I can think of only one other family we’ve met here that has more kids than we do at both the high school and the elementary school. And only a couple who have 6. A handful that have five. Most have only two or three. And although I’ve heard rumors of military families with six or more kids, I haven’t met them.

So I feel a little torn between two worlds and two selves. One self wants to be the good Catholic mama who has lots of kids, nourishes them with healthy whole foods, and makes them read novels about the saints. Yes to life, I want to shout! Look at me, I use NFP!

The other self just wants to blend, to avoid rocking the tenuously balanced boat we’re handling right now, to move into a new identity of older mom who volunteers at the kids’ schools and St. Vincent de Paul, takes the kids to sports and music practices, and still has time to teach a little.

One day I think our life is running pretty smoothly, we’re financially stable, and the other kids don’t need me as much. The next day, my husband goes out of town again, and I’m losing my voice from yelling and dropping a couple hundred dollars on car repairs.

And one of these days, we’ll be moving again, if Congress ever passes a budget.

I told my husband I wouldn’t want to get pregnant too soon before we move because I wouldn’t want to tell anyone here. Let the people at our next duty station see us as crazy people before they know us as reasonably sane.

And, although I know this is an admission of a weakness of faith, I do sometimes fear for the children I have with all the turmoil in the world right now. Sometimes I fear that the rebellions in Africa and the Mideast are started by extremists, not democratic hopefuls, who plan to take over when everything is chaotic. Gas is supposed to be $5 at the end of the year. Milk already is about that. College is going to cost a million dollars.  Will we have to take potassium iodine to prevent radiation poisoning if we move to Guam?

It’s easy to come up with practical reasons to postpone pregnancy, perhaps indefinitely: we’re moving, my husband travels, my older kids are still needy.

But the reality is that the few reasons to have babies are pretty strong ones: babies teach you about love and self-sacrifice, they are the best gift you can give your children, according to Mother Teresa. They bring more love into the world; they are proof that God is love. And then there is the quote I posted here that continues to inspire.

So we remain on the fence about whether our family size should grow any time in the near future, and so far, if God has spoken, He hasn’t spoken loudly enough to hear. I remain unconvicted either way. I wonder how much of my babywanting is jealousy, rooted in a desire to hold on to my youth, or to prove something about my spiritual life, rather than a genuine desire to have another child who will be teenager one day with a teenager’s problems and moods.

On the other hand, how much of our reluctance to commit to having another child is based on vanity and a selfish desire to do something “productive” with my time? I have really enjoyed my parttime teaching – but is that a selfish reason to postpone baby #7? Do I deprive my kids of another sibling because I really don’t want to have to buy a bigger car?


At least with NFP, we can tell ourselves that although we may be following the rules for postponing pregnancy, we haven’t left God out of the conversation about the procreative side of marriage. And He has continued to bless the unitive side, despite the difficulties of our instable life.

Is it too early to look forward to becoming a grandma?

Sweets

for my Sweet!

Happy Valentine's Day! I'll be renewing my marriage vows at Mass this morning without my Valentine, but we had a nice phone chat this morning.  The connection is surprisingly good, despite the fact that it is 10.5 hours later in the day where he is.

We don't do much to mark Valentine's Day around here. A favorite quote from The Little Prince: "The thing that is important is the thing that is not seen . . ." A nice card does my heart as much good as any supermarket roses or box of chocolates.  But I have been reminiscing about past Valentine's dinners.  We didn't go out often early in our marriage, but on our first Valentine's Day as a married couple, in Newport, Rhode Island, we went to a little seafood restaurant on the Point, down the street from where we lived on the first floor of an old house. Our upstairs neighbors were always making curries that fragranced the whole house, while I cooked rice with canned vegetables mixed in. Not a high point in my culinary history.  I was six months pregnant and always hungry, so it was a real treat to dine out on fresh lobster.

But my favorite Valentine: in 1998, my second son was born on the 13th, so on the 14th, our little family welcomed him home. By our second anniversary we had two babies, and have had birthday cake on Valentine's days since.

So until March, I have two twelve year olds. We are in our Irish twin month.